The preparation of food products from doughs based on dehydrated potato products is well known. Snacks such as fabricated chips are among the most popular products that have been prepared from such doughs. The advantages of preparing such food products from a dough includes homogeneity or uniformity in the finished food products and the ability to more closely control the separate steps involved in the preparation of said food products.
For snacks, especially snacks made from sheeted doughs, the quality of the dough determines the efficiency and reliability of the production process, and the quality of the finished product. It is known that doughs comprising potato flakes, having from 40% to 60% broken cells and from 16% to 27% free amylose, process well and result in god quality finished products. Unfortunately, such dehydrated potato products typically command a premium price and, in many geographies, are in limited supply. As a result, there have been attempts to produce doughs from non-ideal dehydrated potato products.
Non-ideal dehydrated potato products include those dehydrated potato products having less than 40% broken cells, a free amylose level of less than 16% or a combination thereof; dehydrated potato products having greater than 60% broken cells; and dehydrated potato products having less than 40% broken cells and a free amylose level of more than 27%. Although non-ideal dehydrated potato products are generally available and reasonably inexpensive, doughs that incorporate these products present numerous process and product quality challenges. For example, dough sheets comprising dehydrated potato products having less than 40% broken cells, a free amylose level of less than 16% or a combination thereof, can be weak and can break during processing and result in finished products that are dry and gummy, while doughs comprising dehydrated potato products having greater than 60% broken cells are difficult to mill and result in finished products that are soft and high in fat. Other doughs, such as those doughs that comprise dehydrated potato products having less than 40% broken cells and a free amylose level of more than 27% result in undesirably dense finished products. As non-ideal dehydrated potato products are inexpensive but produce sub par doughs and finished products, what is desired is a method of producing quality doughs and finished products from such potato products.